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They will be lining up to lecture Jeremy Tyler. They will tell him that they had told him, that they had warned him against abandoning high school to play pro basketball overseas.

They will say that a bad end was inevitable. They will paint Tyler’s decision to quit Maccabi Haifa in midseason as definitive proof of his immaturity, his lack of accountability and the limited growth of his game.

And they will be absolutely right. But they might be wrong if they read too much into it.

That San Diego High’s expatriate baller was unprepared to compete successfully in Israel is neither surprising nor irredeemable. That he is returning home as a failed experiment is a blow to his image, but a comparative blip to his career.

When you’re 18 years old, nimble and 6-foot-11, opportunity does not end with the first setback. There will be other days for Jeremy Tyler, and many more dollars.

Where he goes from here is ultimately and entirely up to him.

“I think Jeremy could be special,” Lincoln High coach Jason Bryant said yesterday afternoon. “I think athletically he’s very advanced for a guy his size. He’s very coordinated. He moves like a 6-5 wing player. If his work ethic can match his potential, he can be a special player.”

Effort is the key variable, and it is one completely within Tyler’s control. If he became bored by his dominance of local high school basketball, as he has repeatedly asserted, Tyler’s professional ambitions have so far exceeded his professional exertions. He went to Israel to jump-start his professional career but quit with five weeks remaining on his contract and no meaningful place in his team’s plans.

He was averaging just 2.1 points and 7.6 minutes per game, and he had fallen so far out of favor that he was no longer suiting up for games. Unhappy with his playing time, Tyler walked out at halftime of one game last month. He also served a suspension for a head-butt incident. Because the Israel Basketball Association allows teams to dress only six foreign players per game, Tyler had recently been reduced to the role of spectator.

“It’s been a few times lately Jeremy had told us he is leaving but didn’t,” Haifa executive Tal Avriel said via e-mail. “This time … he called (a) team manager and told him he booked a flight for the night and is leaving. He also mentioned he fired his agent.”

Bernie Lee, who negotiated Tyler’s first professional contract (for a reported $140,000), said he had decided to stop representing Tyler of his own volition.

“Jeremy has terminated Wasserman (Media Group),” said Lee, an independent agent who specializes in the European market. “I’m going to make the decision on my own to decline to work with Jeremy.

“I just feel that we all came into this situation with the best of intentions. It was a very ambitious endeavor. If Jeremy is of the mindset (to change representation), it might be time for someone else to take a fresh look at it.”

Since agents seldom dissociate themselves from potential commissions, it’s reasonable to assume Lee anticipated the ax. Since Tyler has now quit high school and a six-figure job in less than a year, it’s reasonable to believe the kid has some commitment and/or attention span issues.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” Lee said. “This is not what I would have intended to happen when I originally negotiated the contract for him. It’s disappointing to me.

“We’ve really been working with him to try to stay positive, to try to make it through the season. The expectation on our end wasn’t for him to go over and average 30 points and 20 rebounds per game. It was for him to learn how to be a professional basketball player. It was really supposed to be more of a learning and teaching model.”

Except for a couple of cryptic Twitter posts, Tyler’s version of events was not immediately available. Phone calls placed to his father, James, reached a recording: “The person you are trying to reach is not accepting calls at this time.”

Sonny Vaccaro, basketball’s foremost go-between, told the Union-Tribune’s Brent Schrotenboer that Tyler will likely pursue another European contract at a June camp in Italy. (Tyler is ineligible for the NBA Draft until 2011, and ineligible for the NBA’s Development League until his high school class graduates.)

“I don’t think it’s going to be a detriment at all,” Vaccaro said of Tyler’s experience in Israel. “If you’re asking me if he’ll play professional basketball next year, I would make a bet that he would. I don’t think this holds him back one bit. He went over there. It didn’t work out. They both cut their losses, but it won’t hurt him.”

A giant can always count on a second look. A basketball giant can always count on a second chance. The question is whether any basketball team can count on Jeremy Tyler, whether he has the will to find his way.

“I knew it would be difficult for a young guy to go out of the country and try to beat the system and turn pro at such an early age,” Lincoln’s Bryant said. “I knew it would be difficult for him to make that transition.

“At this point in time, he just needs to hire a personal trainer and just work tirelessly on his game. I think he has a lot to improve on and he needs to try to work eight hours a day, just improving.”

Jeremy Tyler’s talent is tremendous. At issue is his desire.

“If Jeremy does the work, his potential and the things that are going to be open to him are limitless,” Lee said. “(But) there’s no real shortcuts to success, especially in athletics. He has to make the decision to do the work. I can send him anywhere in the world that he would want to go, but unless he understands what it takes on a day-to-day basis, it’s not going to matter.”

He has the advantage of being 18. He has the time to figure things out.